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What does getting locked in an outhouse have to do with
Amsoil? You already read in my previous blog entry that I’m a car guy. You
might recall that I’m handy with tools and that I used to have a fairly
complete automotive shop in my home garage. Being handy with tools was especially
useful this past weekend at Rollins State Park.

Karen and I had decided to celebrate the beautiful August
day with a quick hike up the “short” side of Mt. Kearsarge—in combination with
a couple errands in Warner—but like most men of a certain age I knew I needed
to make a pit stop before we started our hike. Conveniently there was an outhouse
at the beginning of the trail. As soon
as I stepped foot inside I thought to myself how it might have been the
cleanest and least odorous of any outhouse I’d ever been in, and that certainly
was a blessing I would come to appreciate.

You see, when I tried the door handle to leave, the lever
went down without anything happening. It was quickly obvious that a screw was
missing off the lockset ,and the whole mechanism was loose, and every time I
tried it the entire thing shifted. I was locked inside! I called for Karen, who
gave it her best effort to get the door open from the other side, to no avail. I
pushed some more from the inside. She messed with the handle and pulled some
more from the outside. But the door wouldn't budge.

Having installed a number of locksets over the years
(remember also from the earlier blog entry about my being cheap?), I figured that
if I could take the remaining screw out then I could take the lockset apart and
manually unlock the door and get out. Unfortunately I didn't happen to be
carrying a Philips head screwdriver in my pockets. I did, however, have my car
keys, and there was no chance of passing my keys outside and getting any tools
from there, given that this well built outhouse was sealed up tight, except for
some sturdy small-weave chicken wire atop its sides.

I’d been in the outhouse about 15 minutes by this time—on a
hot August afternoon. Thank goodness it was so clean and odorless, as most
outhouses in August would knock you over. Still, I was increasingly eager to
get out of there. Karen sought help at the nearby parking lot, borrowing a
screwdriver from one fellow and needle nose pliers from someone else. With the
pliers she was able to make a hole in the chicken wire (she’s pretty handy with
tools too!) big enough to pass the screwdriver through. Less than a minute later
I had the lockset apart, manually released the lock and was out. While I never
panicked, and it wasn’t smelly, there were some darned big spiders lurking in
there that made me extra happy to escape.

So now, back to Amsoil. While my being handy with tools
helped me out in the “Great Outhouse Escape”, you don't need to be handy to
have access to the excellent protection of Amsoil synthetic oil in your
vehicles. For many years, I changed my own oil. At that time, I had countless
automotive tools—plus the grease-stained hands, cuts and bruises, and filthy
clothes that go along with being an automotive do-it-yourselfer. But you don't have
to do things that way to use Amsoil.

Instead, you might take your car to an automotive shop that
offers its customers Amsoil (or encourage whoever you use to contact us and
start carrying Amsoil—we’d be happy to offer them that “retail” opportunity).
Or you could do what we do, which is to order Amsoil oil and a filter online,
have the order shipped to your home, and bring those supplies to your local
repair shop. Most shops will charge you around $20 labor to change your oil
with Amsoil products.

Remember that with Amsoil you only need to change your oil and filter once a year! Think of
all the time you will save by not having to do that every 3,500-5,000 miles!

And for just $10 you can try out being a Preferred Customer,
getting wholesale pricing on all products. (After 6 months, it’s $20 per year
to continue that status—worth it for most folks.)

One final tip… consider having a Philips head screwdriver along
next time you use an outhouse. More on Amsoil and me another day.

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